On the 27^th April 2015, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published the 13th update of its Q&A document on the implementation of the European Markets Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR). The Q&As provide answers and guidance related to questions received regarding the implementation of EMIR. 

This latest update relates to the second level of the EMIR validation specifications to be commonly applied by the Trade Repositories (TR) with a view to ensuring that reporting is appropriately performed in terms of the EMIR regime.

The said validation specifications include a verification that the values reported in the corresponding fields comply with the format and content rules set out in the technical standards on EMIR reporting. ESMA indicated that this is a key step for enhancing data quality to the extent that a rejected report will indicate which fields are not reported in compliance with EMIR and need to be corrected, and this is expected to facilitate improved reporting by counterparties to meet the applicable EMIR standards.

Such validation controls are based on the original rules contained in the EMIR technical standards (published in December 2012) and, as such, no additional reporting requirements have been introduced.

It is understood that Trade Repositories are expected to implement the validation specifications by the end of October, 2015.

The purpose of ESMA’s Q&As is to promote common supervisory approaches and practices in the application of EMIR by providing responses to questions posed by the general public, market participants and competent authorities in relation to the practical application of EMIR.